In painting interior walls or other relatively large surfaces, rollers are well known devices for quickly and thoroughly applying the paint. Rollers generally have a handle for holding by the painter, to which is attached a rotatable arm. A soft cylindrical cover is placed over the arm, and the cover is dipped into a tray or other source of paint. The paint adheres to the cover, much as it does the various types of brushes used for painting. With the cover against the surface to be painted, the painter moves the roller generally linearly as he or she desires. As the handle is moved linearly, the cover rotates around the arm, applying paint to the surface.
When the painter is finished using the roller (e.g. when the task is completed, the supply of paint runs out, or the color is to be changed), the painter has two options. He or she may remove the cover from the roller and simply throw it away, or he or she may clean the roller in an appropriate rinse medium or solvent. Using water-base paint as an example, the painter may remove the roller, place it in a water bath or under a spigot, and squeeze or rub the cover to reduce the amount of paint in the soft material of the cover. However, these methods of cleaning a roller are tedious for an individual to perform, and they require a substantial amount of time to ensure that most of the paint is rinsed or washed off. Even when the cleaner takes that amount of time and effort to clean a cover, the amount of paint that remains is frequently enough to render the cover stiff or sticky following clean-up. Such remaining paint can also keep the painter from using the cover again for a different color of paint. Of course, throwing away a roller cover after one usage is wasteful for the do-it-yourself painter, but is particularly wasteful for professional painters or contractors that move from job to job. Often such contractors paint several locations in one or several houses or buildings with the same or similar colors, yet have no efficient way to clean and reuse roller covers.
Accordingly, there remains a need for devices and methods that can efficiently clean a paint roller cover to a better degree than for manual clean-up.